


we have romantic fantasies (about what dying truly is)

by mildlyobsessive



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Depression, Gen, Oh god im sorry, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, This is trash, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5315591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlyobsessive/pseuds/mildlyobsessive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh just didn't understand why everyone tried to leave him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have romantic fantasies (about what dying truly is)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am in no way insinuating that depression is a disease that can be 'caught,' or in any way trying to diminish the struggle of those who suffer from it.
> 
> Also, TRIGGER WARNING. If you are someone that is easily triggered by topics such as suicide, I strongly suggest you go read some adorable fluff. Take care of yourself!
> 
> God, this is such trash though. It's literally just the product of me procrastinating on homework.

Joshua Dun attended his first funeral at the age of seven. It was a teenage girl's, the daughter of some coworker of his mom's. Josh had stared down at that pretty girl in the coffin and thought that she looked like she was sleeping, like she might sit up at any moment, laughing as if this was all a joke no one else understood.

But her skin was cold to the touch and her chest was still, and if Josh had placed a hand on her heart or her wrist or her rope-burned neck he would have found nothing; no heartbeat, no sign of life.

"Mom," he had whispered. "What happened to her?"

And his mother had just sighed and attempted to put it into words that a seven year-old would understand. "She caught the sadness, Josh."

She was right, in a way. The death certificate might read 'asphyxiation by hanging', and the kids at her old high school might exchange whispers of 'bullying' and 'cutter' and 'suicide,' but what had driven Mrs. So-and-so's daughter to tie that noose had been sadness in the form of an incurable disease.

Not that Josh knew that, at the time.

…

When Josh was nine, his dog died and he refused to shed a tear.

He'd sat on a lawn chair in his backyard, eyes blinking rapidly and teeth gritted in firm defiance as his dad buried his best friend behind the sandbox 

And when his mother, brow creased with worry, asked him why, he simply said "I don't want to catch the sadness."

So Mrs. Dun, with a half hearted laugh, explained that she had made a mistake, that what the dead girl had had couldn't be caught, that it was a mental thing and it was okay to cry.

And cry Josh did. He sobbed, in fact, tears streaming down his face as he said goodbye to his poor little beagle, his only friend.

He never did get another dog.

…

At thirteen Josh got his first girlfriend, a nice girl with a gleaming smile and a contagious laugh. He thought that he was in love, that they were meant to be, as all eighth grade couples do.

They broke up a month and a half later, over a phone call whispered at two in the morning. "I'm kinda going through a lot," she explained. "I just don't think _we're_ a good idea right now." She'd sounded apologetic, sad even, as she hung up with a shaky "see you later, J," but Josh's heart had been shattered nonetheless.

However, not as shattered as the girl's body had been when they found her the next day, lying on the cement. She'd jumped from a six story building.

Josh supposed that she had been going through too much.

And so Josh attended his second funeral (his third, if you counted the dog), dressed in a black suit and not knowing quite what to do about the people who smothered him with hugs and comments of "I know you two were close," and "What a shame." He'd cried in the arms of strangers that only cared because his girlfriend was dead.

The service was closed casket. He guessed 'see you later, J," had been just another empty promise.

…

Eighteen year-old Josh sat at his high school graduation ceremony, eyes fixed on the empty seat where she should have been sitting, the chair the school left open as a memorial of sorts. 

Josh accepted his diploma and shook the principal's hand, eyes trained on that blank space in the sea of caps and gowns, imagining that she was sitting there, laughing her contagious laugh and cheering him on. That she had made it.

…

Josh was twenty-one when he met Tyler Joseph, saw him screaming his heart out on stage in front of a tiny crowd. Josh had ran into him after the set, quite literally, stepping on his toe as he attempted to send a text. "Ouch," Tyler had exclaimed in his scratchy voice, and Josh had stuttered as he tried to formulate an apology.

And, before he knew it, Josh was entranced by the skinny boy with the crooked teeth and dark lyrics. And lucky, lucky him, because they had exchanged numbers, talked about music and promised to keep in touch, though Josh didn't really expect Tyler to remember him.

But Tyler did, and when Josh got that call asking him to fill in on the drums, he quit his job right then and there and got in the car.

…

Josh was nearly twenty-three the first time Tyler told him he wanted to die.

It had been whispered in the middle of the night, choked out between gasping breaths as Tyler cried in the bunk of some tour bus. Tyler spat out the words like they were poisonous, like he had held them in for far too long. "I can't do this anymore, Josh, I want to be dead I want to die I want to get out of here, _please_."

And Josh held him, because that was all that he could do. He held Tyler through that night and told him that he needed him and he was his best friend and please, _please_ don't leave.

The sun rose the next morning, and Tyler swore up and down that he hadn't meant it, but the dull look in his eyes told Josh otherwise.

And the boy with the dyed hair couldn't help but wonder why everyone seemed to want to leave him.

…

The first time Tyler tried to kill himself was on Josh's twenty-fourth birthday. 

Josh had strolled into Tyler's house expecting a surprise party, people jumping out from behind furniture and laughing, cake and presents and smiles. Hell, he'd even practiced his 'oh, I didn't see this coming _at all!'_ face.

Instead, he'd found Tyler bleeding out on the bathroom floor.

Surprise.

911 was called, an ambulance arrived, everything blurred together into a fog. And when Tyler woke up in the hospital, he promised that he hadn't planned it like this. "I'm so sorry Josh, I wasn't thinking, I didn't mean to ruin your birthday."

Josh had just sighed and assured Tyler that he was just glad he was okay. Accidents happen, right?

…

Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Accidents don't happen, at least not accidents that come in the form of sliced veins and puddles of blood. Tyler was a liar; he lied everyday, with fake smiles and forced laughs and promises that he never intended to keep. But, most of all, he lied about not meaning to. Accidents accidents accidents. Everything was an accident, but nothing really was.

But Josh didn't figure that out until, at twenty-five, he came home to find his best friend with a hole in his head and a gun on the floor.

He saw Tyler laying there, and all he could think about was that dead girl with a rope mark still around her neck, and his first girlfriend laying on the pavement, broken and bent in ways that weren't natural. 

' _See you later, J.'_

Another dead best friend. Another beagle for his dad to bury behind the sandbox.

Oh, fuck, _Tyler_.

…

Josh found the note that night, after Tyler had been taken away. He snatched it up with shaking hands, numbness still rooted inside him. The letter was purely Tyler, full of lilting phrases and complicated similes, all attempting to explain to Josh that everyone was better off with him gone. As if the world was somehow a better place now that Tyler Joseph had a bullet hole in his head.

How had Tyler even _gotten_ a gun?

Josh read that note over and over, clung to it like a lifeline. Tyler's hand had moved over that paper. The twist of Tyler's wrist had formed that letter. The note had Tyler all over it, and that was crucial, because now there was no Tyler left.

Josh fell asleep with the words of that letter pasted on the inside of his eyelids like glowing stars on a child's bedroom ceiling.

…

At the age of twenty-five, Joshua Dun attended his third funeral (his fourth, if you counted the dog). It was for his very best friend.

Tyler lay in the casket, head titled tactfutly so the hole in his head wasn't obvious. He looked like he could have been sleeping, but Josh had learned his lesson. There was no waking up.

Josh was alone. Tyler had left him alone. He'd left, just like everyone else, just like he'd promised not to.

And when one of Tyler's cousins, a little boy who couldn't have been older than seven whispered "What _happened_ to him?", Josh only had one answer.

"Tyler caught the sadness."


End file.
